e
held night after night for some time.

The two principal drinks were gullendoorie--that is, water sweetened
with honey; and another made of the collarene, or flowers of the
Coolabah (grey-leaved box), or Bibbil (poplar-leaved box) flowers,
soaked all night in binguies (canoe-shaped wooden vessels) of water.
Just about Christmas time the collarene is at its best; and then, in
the olden days, there were great feasts and corroborees held.

The flat dayoorl-stones on which the seeds are ground with the smaller
stone, are like the 'saddle-stone querns' occasionally found in
ancient British sites. These primitive appliances preceded the circular
rotatory querns in evolution, and as the monuments prove were used in
ancient Egypt. I cannot say whether, amongst the Euahlayi, there was a
recognised licence as to exchange of wives on these festal occasions,
or at boorahs. If the custom existed, I was not told of it by the
blacks; but it is quite possible that, unless I made inquiries on the
subject, I would not be told.

CHAPTER XIV

COSTUMES AND WEAPONS

I have seen a coloured king simply smirking with pride, in what he
considered modern full dress--a short shirt and an old tall hat.

And I suppose, as far as actual clothing went, it was an advance on the
old-time costume of paint and feathers. A black woman's needle was a
little bone from the leg of an emu, pointed. Her thread was sinews of
opossums, kangaroos, and emus; that was all that was necessary for her
plain sewing, which was plain indeed.

Her fancy work consisted of netting dillee, goolays, or miniature
hammocks to sling her baby across her back, or, failing a baby, her
mixed possessions, from food to feathers; her larder and wardrobe in
one.

Her costume being simple in the extreme did not require much room. It
consisted of a goomillah, which was a string wound round the waist,
made of opossum sinews, and in front, hanging down for about a foot,
were twisted strands of opossum hair. A bone, or on state occasions a
green twig, stuck through the cartilage of her nose, a string net over
her hair, or perhaps only a fillet, or a kangaroo's tooth fastened to
her front lock, gum balls dried on side-locks, an opossum's hair
armlet, and perhaps a reed bead necklet and a polished black skin,
toilette complete, unless for certain ceremonies a further decoration
of flowers or down feathers was required.

The principal article of the man's dress was called wa